Chariot burial

Drawing of the La Gorge-Meillet burial; the chariot-driver was interred above his master.

Another French burial

Chariot burials are tombs in which the deceased was buried together with his chariot, usually including his (more rarely, her) horses and other possessions. An instance of a person being buried with their horse (without the chariot) is called horse burial.

The earliest true chariots known are from around 2,000 BC, in burials of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in modern Russia in a cluster along the upper Tobol river, southeast of Magnitogorsk. They contained spoke-wheeled chariots drawn by teams of two horses. The culture is at least partially derived from the earlier Yamna culture, where some wagon-burials are found, and is interpreted by certain scholars to have Indo-Iranian features. The Krivoye Ozero chariot grave contained a horse skull, three pots, two bridle cheek pieces, and points of spears and arrows.[3]

Later chariot burials are found in China. The most noted of these was discovered in 1933 at Hougang, Anyang in central China's Henan Province, dating from the rule of King Wu Ding of the Yin Dynasty (c. 1,200 BC). A Western Zhou (9th century BC) chariot burial was unearthed at Zhangjiapo, Chang'an in 1955.[4]

In Europe, chariot burials are known from Iron Age (8th century BC) Salamis, Cyprus, Tomba Regolini Galassi in Etruria (7th century BC), Italy, and from Beilngries (7th century BC), the Hallstatt C culture in Germany. Chariot burial was an Iron Age Celtic custom; while the wooden chariot has decayed, the horse harness, usually in bronze, survives well, and enough is left of the iron wheel covers and other iron parts to enable well-informed reconstructions. Only the richest were buried in this way, and there are often many other grave-goods. The 4th-century Waldalgesheim chariot burial is one of the best known. A tomb from the 4th century BC was discovered in La Gorge-Meillet, Marne in France;[5] another (450-300) at Somme-Bionne.

In addition to the Etruscan tomb in Italy, there are two chariot burials at Sesto Calende, south of Lake Maggiore, of the Golasecca culture dating to the 7th and 6th century BC accompanied by weapons, ornaments and a large situla[6] while an earlier burial of the same culture, at Ca' Morta - Como (c. 700 BC), included a four-wheeled wagon in the tomb.

In England, chariot burials are characteristic of, and almost confined to, the Iron Age Arras culture associated with the Parisii tribe. Finds of such burials are rare, and the persons interred were presumably chieftains or other wealthy notables. The Wetwang Slack chariot burial of c. 300 BC is unusual in that a woman was interred with the chariot.[7] Some 21 British sites are known, spanning approximately four centuries, virtually all in the East Riding of Yorkshire.[8] The Ferrybridge and Newbridge (near Edinburgh) chariots are unusual in Britain as they are the only ones to be buried intact.[9] The burial custom seems to have disappeared after the Roman occupation of Britain.